


Choice

by Dyce



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Non-Canon Relationship, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-13
Updated: 2013-09-13
Packaged: 2017-12-26 10:18:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,540
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/964793
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dyce/pseuds/Dyce
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A fluffy little thing exploring how a certain relationship might come about.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Choice

**Author's Note:**

> A little thing for Elle, who didn't think I could sell her on this pairing.

Mai had imagined losing her virginity. Everyone does, after all.

For a while, when she and Zuko were together, she let herself dream of love and passion. Afterwards, when she couldn't endure his secrecy, she imagined the serenity of celibacy and dreaded the impersonal duty of the marriage her parents would arrange.

By the time she was eighteen, attending the formal celebrations of the Fire Lord's betrothal to a lovely, exotic waterbender, she knew how it would be. Her parents had narrowed the field to two candidates, each bidding fiercely for the hand and maidenhead of the Fire Lord's former girlfriend, the girl who still had his ear. What Mai wanted or imagined had nothing to do with the matter.

She did not imagine encountering a tall, muscular young man with broad shoulders and a ready smile.

She did not imagine spending hours comparing weapons and discussing the merits of different oils for preserving leather and protecting steel.

She did not imagine being towed to the Fire Lord's armory, her manicured hand tucked into a big calloused one, and engaging in a hot debate over the use of the glaive in combat.

Her imagination had conjured silk sheets and an impersonal, painful duty, not lingering kisses growing slowly more heated, not skilled hands roaming her body and a wild, fervent coupling on the red gown and blue tunic spread out on the floor. She had expected demands for her service, not kisses and caresses all over her body, for _her_ pleasure, until control deserted her and she wailed his name.

She certainly couldn't have imagined that if she accidentally scratched her first lover's thigh with a hastily discarded senbon that he would _laugh_ , white teeth bright against dark skin, and make terrible puns about her weapons and his 'weapon' until she silenced him with another kiss. Nor would she have thought that he would hold her afterwards, smoothing her hair and chatting about (of all things) the time he had made a 'space sword' - until the sound of an opening door sent them scrambling for their clothes.

Certainly being confronted, while dishevelled and half-dressed, with a mildly annoyed Fire Lord had almost never featured.

"I just have one question," Zuko said, pinching the bridge of his nose. "Why the armory? I mean, I understand why the two of you are here. I know you like weapons. _I_ like weapons. I just want to know why you didn't, at some point, feel the need to go somewhere more comfortable. Or private."

"Uh..." Sokka grinned sheepishly. "Well, we were talking about the weapons. And then I said that the glaive was a lady-weapon and she threw a knife at me. And then, uh... you know. One thing led to another."

Mai's face was burning, and she lifted her chin, _daring_ Zuko to say a word. About her virtue, about Sokka having any kind of obligation, _anything_.

"Well, yes," Zuko said to her surprise. He was actually smiling slightly. "Didn't you and Suki get involved after she beat you up publicly? Twice?"

Sokka shrugged, apparently not nearly as embarrassed as Mai was. "What can I say? I like beautiful, dangerous women."

"I know." Zuko sighed again. "But next time, please at least _try_ not to get caught."

* * *

Not that there would be a next time. Mai had her pride. Sokka had offered a brief, sweet moment of passion and she'd taken it gladly, eager to make that one choice for herself, but they owed one another nothing. They'd made no promises.

When he approached her the next evening, coming to stand beside her on a small balcony overlooking a charming water-garden, she didn't even look at him. "What do you want?"

"To apologise." Sokka's deep voice sounded a little penitent, but not at all guilty. "Zuko was right. Staying in the armory was stupid, and I should have thought about that. I'm sorry I got so, uh, carried away."

At least he wasn't offering to marry her out of guilt over her lost virtue. She'd dreaded that, losing the sweetness of the memory in anger at him for thinking she should be ashamed of it. "I did, too. It doesn't matter."

"If it doesn't bother you." He leaned on the railing, looking down at the garden. "So. Uh. We didn't really get a chance to talk about it. The thing. In the armory."

She shrugged, careful to keep her face expressionless. "What should we talk about? It happened. It was fun. It doesn't have to be a big deal."

"Not if you don't want it to be." He looked at her, and those blue eyes seemed to have a pull as irresistible as the tide. She turned to face him, even though she hadn't meant to, and she didn't know if she was pleased or angry that he was looking at her exactly the way he had yesterday, when they were talking about knives. As if he enjoyed her company, and that was all there was to it. "But the first time usually is. I mean, at least _kind_ of a big deal. I didn't want you to think that I don't, uh, appreciate that."

She blushed. She hadn't realized he knew. "Oh. Well. It's not... it was nice," she said awkwardly, not knowing what to say. "Thank you, for that. I know it usually isn't."

"I did my best." He smiled at her, and reached out to take her hand. The feel of his warm, calloused fingers sent a shiver through her body that not all the control in the world could prevent. "Mai, listen - "

"Don't," she blurted, and to her horror there were tears rising to her eyes. "Sokka, please don't think you have to... to apologise, or let me down easily, or whatever it is you're going to say. I don't have any regrets, and I don't expect anything beyond what it was, so just - "

"You're not happy here," Sokka said quietly. "Are you?"

She blinked at him. "What?"

"Well, that was the impression I got. You're bored, and lonely, and your parents treat you... well, like Toph's parents treated her, and let me tell you, last time I talked to her father I nearly put a sword right through him when he suggested that I'd _compromised_ her by visiting her school." He snorted. "She's barely fifteen! And even if she wasn't, when and how she decides to do that is nobody's business but hers." He paused. "And, you know, whoever she's with. I mean, he's going to at least get a vote."

Mai hadn't been so confused by a conversation in as long as she could remember. "I don't understand. What are you trying to - "

"You're not happy. And I can tell you're not, and... you miss it, right? The adventures. Being one third of the Dangerous Ladies."

She blinked away the traces of tears. "Dangerous ladies?"

"That's what I used to call you, back in the day." He shrugged, giving her hand a little squeeze. "Look, it's your call. But if you want out, Aang and I are leaving tomorrow morning. You could come with us. See the world. Have adventures. Have new and interesting people try to kill you and stick knives in them."

Out. A way out. She'd be disowned, of course. But every fibre of her being screamed with the desire for _escape_ , for adventure and danger and never having to be a proper lady again. Zuko wouldn't penalise her parents if she ran off with the Avatar. If anything, it would help her father's career, not hurt it.

But she hesitated, drawing her hand out of his and glaring at him. "As your... what? 'Companion'?" If he thought she was so desperate for escape that she'd whore herself to him for it...

"What? No!" He actually looked kind of horrified. "Look, Mai, we... we have a lot in common, and I liked talking to you and... I don't know. I'd like to see if this, us, could go somewhere. But I know you're an independent woman and just because we, uh, visited the armory, that doesn't mean I think I have any kind of claim on you or anything! If you're willing to see if we could be an us, then I'd like that. If not, well, that's your call. But either way, I just... wanted you to know you could leave. That we'd like to have you along, if that's what you want."

You're an independent woman.

That's your call.

In the five thousand year history of the Fire Nation, surely no man had ever said sweeter words to a woman. Mai had never, _never_ imagined hearing such words, facing a handsome man who was more interested in her weapons than her lineage and having him tell her that while he wanted her, the choice was entirely hers.

She slipped away the next morning without regret, with Zuko's blessing and a plea from Katara to not, for La's sake, let the idiots do something stupid.

And if she couldn't have imagined the first time, the second - when, after three weeks of testing Sokka's commitment to letting her make the choice, she slipped into his tent and jumped on him - went _exactly_ as planned.

 


End file.
